the perfect sky is torn
by waywardcherry
Summary: She tries to feel around just above the edge of her pajama pants and it's still just her, nothing flourishing inside, no tingly feelings awakening her to motherhood. It's just her. Her hipbones, her belly button, her body that she's known forever. [TW: abortion]
1. Chapter 1

This is based on Rachel's pregnancy scare. Only here it's not a scare, it's real and... it won't be anymore.

It's based on a ficlet that can be found on my AO3 (same name as here).

... ... ...

It's not like she believes in any kind of deity at this point.

Her silly red Uggs and peacoat are soaked through for catching the first hour of the blizzard, the cinnamon scone she was hoping to have later with her herb tea got trampled by the other passengers on the final transfer to the L train. As if that wasn't enough to kill whatever she had in herself that could be called _fight_, now that she's home, she sees Kurt lounging on their ratty couch (also known as _Not _Santana's Bed—it's her assigned space for now, she just refuses to acknowledge it) in the living room, informing her in an utterly bored tone that there's no more hot water for the day.

And before she can make the final verdict that there is no God, she drags her cold feet past Adam and pulls the curtains of her bedroom to find Santana sprawled on the bed, wearing blue pajamas (Rachel's) and a zebra print sleeping mask (also hers), under a comforter that most certainly does not belong to Santana, either.

She doesn't have it in her to sigh anymore.

Kurt's bed is sacred ground (plus Adam's there, looking somewhat gorgeous reading a book) and the kitchen's drafty. She goes into the bathroom—a warm bath is out of question, but she knows she left a shawl hanging over the edge of the hamper (under these circumstances, she can't be too picky) under the sink and bless Carole for the plush bath mats all over. They should provide some warmth.

Rachel wraps the shawl around her body, not finding it hard at all to leave any part of her body uncovered. She just didn't count on being faced directly with the trash can and what she knew was in there, ready to completely obliterate her future.

The shiver that takes over her body has nothing to do with the cold.

..

The muffled swearing on the other side of the door awakens her as much as the searing pain creeping up her leg from having fallen asleep curled up against the wall. She tries to get up and fails, her dormant leg landing her right back on the bath mat. The room smells like Febreeze and coffee and the outside is _loud_.

A neverending series of thumps against the door have her questioning what the hell it is she got into with these people. "_Berry!_"

Of course.

Expecting any semblance of awareness from Santana would be too much. Rachel sits up slowly, carefully avoiding eye contact with the trash can and stretching her achy joints, holding her breath for the second it takes to release her pain. Her leg is coming back to life and it itches like crazy when she stretches it to the tip of her toe and holds herself up from the ground on her balled fists. She almost loses her balance when Santana yells, "_Berry, get off the bush! God, you hog everything._"

Well, that's rich. And it gets her to spring up and limp her way towards the door. "Are we seriously talking about _hogging _things, Santana?"

The sleeping mask is hiked up to the top of her head like sunglasses and it makes this whole thing more ridiculous than it should rightfully be.

"If you haven't yet noticed, this is the only bathroom in this dump and you've been in it for hours."

Rachel skates past mildly annoyed and reaches furious at an alarming speed. "And if you haven't noticed, you've been on _my_ bed this whole time."

"Ikea shit takes hours to assemble, and it's _your_ bed, you little diva from hell, you could've just joined me. It's not like you're gonna take up more than a quarter of an inch anyway."

The nerve on this girl makes it impossible to fight with her. Especially when she feels so drained she just wants to skid off to bed and wait for this day to end. With her hands up in mock surrender, she walks around Santana and sees Kurt and Adam playing Scrabble on the kitchen table. Without looking up from his tile rack, Kurt tells her that they're snowed in for the foreseeable future. It's funny that he seems like her personal info service—she likes it. She's discovering little by little how much he cares about her from silly, everyday things like keeping her updated on anything that might concern her. "There's also coffee and bran muffins," he says, placing a few tiles on the board. There's also stuff like _that_. Her stomach grumbles on cue and it's not like she can just—_not_ indulge.

Maybe _indulging _isn't the right word. There's something bigger than that, maybe it needs her attention. Maybe—

Santana walks out of the bathroom with this ashen expression just as Rachel's about to take a bite of the muffin. She leans her hip on the kitchen counter and notices Adam, gentleman that he is, nodding at Santana, who doesn't even notice, still staring at Rachel. What on earth?

She's about to pour coffee into a mug when Santana marches up to her and places the pot back into the coffeemaker.

"What—"

"It's 8pm," she says sternly. "You took a jolly nap on the bathroom floor, you need to actually _sleep_ and this—won't help. Go to bed."

"Santana..."

"I'm sorry, do I hear you _fighting_ me on this?"

She _does_ need to sleep. If not for _her_ benefit, at least for—_No_. There's no—_thinking_ about this, not when her back feels like it's gonna give out at any moment and Santana might burn holes through her soul with the way she's looking at her. She seriously wishes she knew what changed in the past five minutes.

"I'm—going to bed," she stutters, looking at the floorboards.

"Yes, you're going to bed."

It's that tone again and she doesn't like it.

..

She's fully alert in the middle of the night and, sure enough, she's not alone in bed.

Santana's tucked under the covers the exact same way she found her when she walked into the loft earlier that day... or yesterday. (Her biological clock is such a joke these days she can't tell the difference anymore.) She can't hear anything, the only flickering streams of light are coming from her window, a sign that it's snowing pretty heavily. She's always liked that light and silence that came with snowstorms, it's all white and quiet and she can almost hear herself think.

And her most overwhelming thought is that she's on Brody's side of the bed and she doesn't know why. He's not _there_ and she doesn't know_ why_. She never asked, he never told her. It's becoming a habit and she kind of tears a hole through the sheet she was fiddling with on her midriff when she remembers why she's cold: Santana, who's completely cocooned in Rachel's comforter, leaving her with one measly layer of sheets. And the slew of insults and colorful nicknames she has for the guy whose bed she's sleeping on, the last one being that she _swore_ she saw him on a screenshot from her XTube newsletter. Santana doesn't pay rent and has had it in for Brody since the day she moved in.

The thing is... worrying about his night time activities is not on her list of priorities. In fact, she's not worried at all. About him, or them. She unloops her hand from the ends of the sheets and lowers it to her stomach. The movement is shaky and foreign to her. She never quite understood the big deal about women touching their own pregnant bellies at random moments. It's like their hands just... slide there, like it's hair that needs to be fixed. This doesn't feel natural to her. She tries to feel around just above the edge of her pajama pants and it's still just her, nothing flourishing inside, no tingly feelings awakening her to motherhood.

It's just _her_. Her hipbones, her belly button, her body that she's known forever.

She nearly jumps out of her skin when that huge lump moves next to her and she pulls her hand away as if her belly's on fire.

"What," Santana grumbles with one eye open.

"Nothing," comes out too quickly and too high-pitched, she can just tell from the way Santana's eyes just open completely and fix themselves on her waist. "Santana, I wasn't doing anything."

"Sure," she replies, but it's without any of the malicious tone she's used to when it comes to her. It sounded almost hollow. Now she doesn't know what to do with her hands and pushes the sheets aside. "Where you going? You sick?"

That's—a strange question to say the least. "I'm getting some water."

"Good," Santana says quietly, but watches her make her way out of the room. This day has been so weird, so—

"_Christ_!" She grits through her teeth, bending down to hold her left knee. Oh, of course it's one of Santana's many Ikea boxes just lying around what will be her section of the apartment, the curtains just concealed that whole mess. (And she's certainly not amused at packing away her decorative gold star.) Not a second passes and Santana's at her side, lowering herself to Rachel's level and using whatever light that's coming through the window to see what happened.

"You know, you're allowed to say 'fuck' when this happens."

Rachel rolls her eyes and straightens herself up. "It's not in my nature."

"Oh, but _Jesus Christ_ is, sister Moskowitz?"

She sighs and fixes her hair. "I need water, Santana."

But she's standing in her way and there's that disturbing concern again. "Are you sure you don't need anything—else? Like extra pillows or some vitamins?"

_Vitamins_? What the— "No, I'm fine," she says as she circles Santana and starts to walk away, but turns around one last time. "Actually, yes. Would you please root around your boxes and grab _your own_ comforter I'm sure your mother packed? I need mine back."

The sight of a pouty Santana is more perturbing than her tone, for sure.


	2. Chapter 2

The actual sharing of the loft is not a problem. It's the noise and the words aimed towards Adam and Brody and everyone _else_ in the world who's not paying Santana's rent—and for that reason alone. Rachel chops the celery a little more forcefully than she intended and for a moment she thinks she nicked a finger. She muffles the surprised sound she makes; that random display of concern last night was scary to say the least. She never thought Santana would take her offer of friendship that easily.

What's more unnerving about being stranded is that she needs to visit a doctor or at least take a few more home pregnancy tests. They can be very misleading. What if it's nothing?

She catches bits and pieces of the chatter behind her and finds it difficult to reconcile this Santana with the almost caring person she shared a bed with last night. Maybe she's afraid of being vulnerable in front of her peers—that would be consistent with Rachel's idea of her all through high school, but it's somehow different. If it's not her or Kurt, Santana has no care for the world. And Rachel knows it's only out of a sense of obligation, which she's sure Mrs. Lopez taught her as _gratitude_ and she's decided to interpret it the wrong way.

(Far be it from Rachel to confront her about _that_. She's pregnant, not mentally disabled.)

She's _pregnant_.

Maybe.

Her thoughts derail completely. Or maybe it's her mind reeling her back to her main source of worry. Can she even tell anyone? Finn is—_was_—her best friend, but he most likely would think this baby is his. It wouldn't be far fetched. They'd never been careless, but that day at the wedding, something different was happening._ They_ were different. (Which doesn't make their actions any less dumb.)

Her dads would put her future first. Actually, _Daddy_ would, he's more sensible and can restrain Dad's inevitable obsession with being a papa. He was willing to let her get married in high school, sometimes they can't hold each other down and soar away into _grand_ ideas. It's always Daddy who pulls them back down.

It's a bad idea all around.

Quinn is her friend, one who has been through this under far more difficult circumstances, and would be fit to give advice... and then she remembers when her friend thought she was pregnant that time in the bathroom and how her eyes grew so wide she nearly expected the punishment. _How could you be so irresponsible? Didn't I teach you anything?_

And she's only thinking about leading with Brody, she's not even _thinking_ of mentioning Finn.

Another bad idea.

Among many, if she says so herself. How could she even think her agreement with Brody would work out when she's not even sure how she feels? She's not in love, with anyone. Her feelings for Finn can get complicated, but she's learned to have control over them.

That thought alone makes her snort while she drops somes baby carrots into the pot. The room goes silent.

"Something funny?" Santana says, mildly annoyed.

"No, I just—remembered something," she replies, foolishly examining her finger for cuts and grabbing a paper towel.

"What's that, are you hurt?" And the concern is back and it's starting to irritate her.

"No, it's just a small cut, there's no blood in your soup, Santana."

"I wasn't worried about that."

"Well, now _I_ am," Kurt says and Adam chuckles.

"_Well_,it's nothing," she says maybe a little too loudly, slamming the knife and board into the sink, once again silencing the room. It was out of her control and she adjusts the hem of her sweater. Confronted with their stunned faces, she excuses herself to the bathroom.

At first, she doesn't think much of it. She needed to get away, she's now safely ensconced in the only room surrounded by real, _actual_ walls in this place. Then something swirls in her stomach and the expiration date on the granola bar she snacked on while cooking comes to mind. A minute goes by and the walls sort of don't mean anything; she can hear them talking—not Adam, he's an absolute sweetheart. It's Kurt and Santana—she continues to pile on Brody, Kurt does very little to stop her, as if he couldn't be bothered. Nobody else likes Brody anyway.

Maybe that's what sends her to her knees, chest heaving, the contents of her stomach floating around in the water. She quickly flushes the toilet (the sight of vomit has always repulsed her) and lets her body lean against the bathtub.

How the hell did it come to this?

She was supposed to have given up on her great love in the name of something bigger, the school and Cassie and the hardships of the city, they were all stepping stones towards her dream. By now, she was supposed to be focused and carrying a giant cup of coffee on her way to big auditions, learning the ways of the city and losing her naïvety to impress everyone who has ever doubted her—even Mr. Schuester, on occasion.

All she has now? Two roommates who quite possibly have always hated her, a boyfriend she's certain has done more bad than good all around, more insecurities than she cares to count, and a baby she's still not sure who it belongs to.

It's hers, that much she can say. It's there, making itself present whenever it feels like it. Such as now.

She hasn't seen Brody in two days, except for the text message here and there, and she hasn't spoken to Finn at all. His last Facebook update was him sending Marley Rose his best after the whole Sectionals fiasco.

She's alone. And everything that could've gone wrong on her life plan apparently did.

She decides to get up when they start picking movies. As she brushes her teeth and fixes her hair, she hears Santana tear Brody apart—nothing new—and make an odd comment on the way Rachel has been looking lately. She grabs at the edges of the sink and feels Santana's whole tone and worry from the past twenty-four hours evaporate with those words like they were never ever there. It's just Santana Lopez, again. This time, sharing a roof (but never the comforter) with her.

It's all _so_ wrong her knuckles turn white.

When she exits the bathroom, she finishes Kurt's sentence where he asks Santana to tone it down and the words coming out in Brody's defense just tumble out. For a moment, she acknowledges that she's acting like a Brody puppet, but she grabs at that last straw of dignity and looks Santana straight in the eyes.

There's that smirk again and she crosses her arms against her chest lest she reach for the nearest object to fling at the girl.

The movie picks are... _interesting_. She feels something dropping and freezing inside her when she's at the receiving end of Santana's staredown and Kurt's dragged out comment, as if he knew something was up. That scares her more than anything else, because he's not fond of Brody to begin with. If he finds out the guy managed to get her _pregnant_ of all things, his skin will most likely break down. With reason.

She tries to talk them out of watching anything pregnancy related and gives Santana a pointed look—if she knows anything, she'd better stay quiet.

They end up with Moulin Rouge, which sounds safe enough. No pregnant Nicole Kidman to deal with for at least two hours.

..

A drug dealer. Out of all possibilities, _a drug dealer_.

It's ridiculous to think about that being true at all. To Santana, it's the gospel truth. Brody's in NYADA... and it hits her that that's pretty much all she ever knew about him. She's never been to his former place. Outside of dates, she never saw him out of school grounds, either; no family history, no favorite band, no random texts from friends or exes. Nothing that would justify to anyone, not even to herself, that this man should be fathering her child at any point.

It just keeps getting worse. Her shoulders hurt, it feels like a bunch of moths (never butterflies these days) took residence in her stomach. She feels them flutter about every now and then, not in a good way. Sometimes the _thought_ of moths makes her want to make a run for the toilet.

She rolls her shoulders and her neck, her eyes closed, deep breaths. She doesn't let go of the sweaters the found under the bed—she doesn't allow herself to get mad at Santana going through all of their things again, she's trying to find a moment of peace in this horrid day.

Of course she doesn't, because Santana picks that moment to march into her room and make herself comfortable on Rachel's bed. It's not like she can see it, she refuses to open her eyes, she can recognize the sounds by now. Shuffle, shuffle, (loud) content sigh, shuffle one more time, page-flipping, probably a magazine.

"Ah, good. You can always count on Lady Hummel's free Vogue copies to give you tips on healthy dieting!"

"Really," Rachel says, trying to keep a thread of boredom to control her voice as she opens the drawer to place her sweaters in.

"Really! For the everyday woman, athletes, singers, businesswomen, _mothers-to-be_... Everyone."

The way Santana lingers on that last part makes her shut the drawer with a little more force than she'd intended. "I'm glad everyone can now maintain a healthy regimen."

"You didn't eat much today, not even your blood soup," she says a little less pointedly, eyes fixed on the magazine.

"I _told_ you, Santana, there wasn't any blood—"

"I _know_," she interrupts, still not looking at Rachel. "I just think you should have eaten something."

If this conversation continues like this, she may just breathe a little.

"_And_ since the wax doll isn't here to cater to your needs, I reheated it for you with some croutons. They're from the deli downstairs, sorry, but that's as far as I could get in this weather."

How is it possible to feel like throwing a shoe at Santana's face and also get misty over a silly gesture? "I—well, thank you. I _am_ quite hungry."

"Good," she says, squinting at the page. "It says here that you should eat small portions every three hours, but shouldn't feel guilty to indulge whenever—you feel like it."

"That's always been my diet anyway."

"But you _should_ indulge. And no elliptical for the moment."

"'_No ellip_—Santana, what section are you even reading," she asks, wringing her empty hands together. Santana looks up from the magazine and something like fear flashes over her eyes for a hot second.

"Performer-athletes..? Though I don't think you should worry about the power bars, G.I. Joe's got a healthy stash in the cupboard, gotta keep fit and hairless if you're gonna run from the cops at any given moment."

And there it is, the moment where she stops being confused and is consumed by this anger born out of shame that she's never felt before. It makes all her defenses flare up and she grabs the magazine out of Santana's hand in three strides and throws it against the brick wall across the room. "You know_ nothing_ about Brody! You don't know what he's like, or who he is or where he comes from."

"Are you saying that to me or to yourself?"

When she first starts to feel the sign of wetness in her eyes, dead-set on Santana's, is that she backs away and straightens up. "Get out of my room."

"Fine," she says lowly, gets up and starts to walk away. "Your soup's getting cold."

"I don't care about the soup, I just want you to get _out_."

"Rachel—" and she sounds kind of alarmed or maybe it's how tinny everything sounds to Rache's ears as she tries not to crumble.

"I'm not asking a third time," she whispers.

This time, she hears nothing, only her own ragged breath.

..

It's dark and cold and there's only that white silence again. She's lost in a sea of spare blankets, her old comforter rolled up like this silent, warm body she can curl up against. She can't stop watching the snow, and the only sound in the room is the occasional sniffle coming from her.

Until, that is, she hears a sandy slide against the floor and raises her head just enough to take a peek. She can't make it out in the shadows, so she approaches and notices the steam coming from her veggie soup in a bowl, some bread, water and a post-it that simply says. "_Eat_".

It's not like she can say no to that. And if she doesn't make a sound taking the tray away, it's like it never happened.

..

Another thing Rachel really should've seen coming: Santana rooting through their garbage.

Everything clicks, it makes sense and she actually feels something snap and break in her chest. It's what has her heaving against Santana's neck for what seems like an eternity, it really does. It all turned black and swirly and there was no energy left to tell Santana that no, everything was _not_ gonna be okay._ Nothing_ about this is okay.

It's what she can't hear anymore that kind of eases her into reality.

There's silence, except for the lights, which are still on. And them, who are still in the same position she remembers settling into when Santana pulled her into her arms. The girl is still in her street clothes, probably freezing in that tiny skirt. She remembers she was reading a book and drinking tea when Santana walked in. At this point, she has no idea where either of those are or how. All she can feel is fingers tangled in her hair and her nose pressed against a warm collarbone.

She has no idea what she's in for in the morning, but it struck a chord with her how she didn't hear any judgment or I-told-you-so's. She's talking about _Santana Lopez_, her unlikely roommate, who hates her boyfriend and taunted her for days about that and the pregnancy she knew about all along. "I'm your friend, you can trust me" was never something she expected to hear from this person.

But then again, she doesn't know Rachel slept with Finn about the same time this baby was conceived. She hates Finn, she hates Brody. What difference will that make if Rachel decides to tell her? What if she wakes Santana up right now and tells her so that everything is out in the open?

Her heavy eyelids decide for her and all she can do is reach for her blanket to cover both of them as much as she can. There's a slight shuffle of the body under her own and a barely audible hum.

Yes. Tomorrow.

..

When people say it looks like a peanut, they're right in their assessment. Although she would probably liken it more to a bean. It's smaller and, according to the sonogram pictures on the wall—those of happy parents who have gracefully donated their pictures of their unborn child to this medical practice—what she has growing inside her definitely resembles a bean.

_She has a bean_. It's right there, becoming a—_peanut_.

(To say that she finds it at all easy to call it a_ baby_ is just—)

The doctor says something about health and growth and hands her pamphlets. She absentmindedly flips through them and notices they are not all the same. There are "options", she reads, at the same times the kind doctor says it. She's barely nineteen. Options are presented to patients like her all the time. It's a requirement.

She's sure it was not the case for the Phillips baby on the wall. She bets its mother was proud to show it off like that, its development so remarkable it deserved to be immortalized by science.

She snaps out of whatever trance she was on when she's touched on the shoulder by the doctor. Her brief moment of clarity is enough to thank him for the confirmation and she's not really sure she shook his hand. She walks out and it's brighter, with Santana sitting on the beige couch flipping rapidly through a magazine. The click of the door has Santana on her feet in a heartbeat, but the shock has Rachel cold.

Santana hugs her and she returns it limply. "Oh my God," she hears Santana whisper.

"Thank you for being here," she mutters and awkwardly untangles herself from the embrace. "I have to head to class."

"Wait, _what_?"

"NYADA's open now, the city stopped only for a moment, Santana."

"But—that's it? Isn't this the moment you sit and think about what the hell it is you're doing with your life? This is not a case of the hiccups, you're _pregnant_ and _this_ is not you!"

She knows Santana doesn't mean this, right now. Everyone's allowed their stunned moment from time to time. She knows _exactly_ what Santana's talking about.

"I have a very important lecture I need to attend and I need to process all of this, I can't just—go home right now and talk about options," she says, waving the pamphlets in the air. Santana just looks confused. Rachel stops in front of her for a moment and debates telling her about Finn. It's not like Santana has the best poker face in the world, she clearly wants to know where Rachel's getting at, but—no.

Shutting her brain off is better. She quickly squeezes Santana's hand and walks out of the clinic. It's not when she reaches the busy sidewalk that she realizes she's been holding her breath this entire time.


	3. Chapter 3

**AN:** I used chunks of Bee's and Ashleigh's brainstorming in this chapter, but I know they won't mind since they suggested that's how things would progress, anyway. Thanks, girls.

Also, I used some lines and scenes from canon here, others were left out for... reasons.

.. .. ..

"Well, well, well," she hears Santana says as she walks in. "I see that donkey-face's crap is still here and if donkey-face's crap is here, then that means that he must be as well."

Rachel knew that the door sliding couldn't mean anything good; it was just her and Brody in the loft at the moment. After the snowstorm debacle, nothing good ever happens when there's a third person in their presence.

It's even worse when it's _Santana_.

She almost loses a finger when she brushes a strand of her hair a little too roughly. _Of course_ she has her doubts. Santana might live there rent-free and never buy any groceries, but Brody is also one to restrict his contributions to his share of the rent down to the penny; having a wad of cash stashed somewhere undisclosed to her in a place with no walls _does_ raise a few suspicions.

With all the energy left in her for this particular argument, she drops the brush on her desk. "I already told you he got a job on the side as a cater waiter."

"Then why would he keep it a secret?"

"He was embarrassed about it," which... she's completely sure she doesn't buy it. This is the man who walked around the loft in the buff for days to support her decision to be topless on film, she figures it would take _a lot _to embarrass him.

Santana's footsteps are rushed and closer, and Rachel sees her alongside the partition. "You know what he should be embarrassed about? Not using his Magic Mike money to support the mother of his kid—_oh wait_! He doesn't fucking know," she drawls, looking Rachel dead in the eyes, a look so piercing it reminds her of high school and her knees tremble a little.

Santana's not wrong. He may not be a drug dealer (she doesn't believe that for a second), but there's still something that he hides and keeps her from telling him what has been happening. She would agree with Santana wholeheartedly if she weren't feeling so ashamed, so stupid, so—"I slept with Finn," she whispers a little desperately. Santana blinks.

"When did that happen?"

"At the wedding."

"Just when I think your taste couldn't get any worse, you go_ right back_—"

"It's _not _about that," she says a little louder, looking over Santana's shoulder for any sign of a pause in Brody's singing. When his rendition of _Closer_ doesn't seem to have stopped at all, she swallows a tad harder and searches for any spot to focus on that's not Santana's stern look. "We were careless and Brody and I, we—" It's so dumb. It's so dumb.

There's a silence that somehow overpowers Brody's voice.

"Who _are_ you?"

She feels her vision blurring, but she won't allow these tears to fall. She has no business crying over mind numbingly imbecile choices, especially to someone who, at the moment, knows more about her own life than she does.

(At least it feels that way.)

Walking past Santana's disgusted look, Rachel starts to assemble her belongings on the couch to get as far away from this apartment (and this conversation) as possible. Santana follows her, not caring about the volume of her voice at all.

(As long as Brody keeps singing. He has to keep singing.)

"Look, forget about the fact that you keep going back and forth between you flop high school ex and that terrifying 'waiter-with-a-pager', you're missing the fucking point! The Rachel Berry I went to high school with would be at least _a hair_ more responsible than fucking a guy without protection, let alone two, one of whom I have a billion ways to describe and none of them are remotely good." It's like she takes a moment for a second wind when Rachel hasn't even _begun_ processing all she's said yet, but Santana takes a deep breath, fire coming out of her eyes.

Rachel can feel her voice tremble. "I think you're wrong about Brody."

(Lie.)

"My psychic Mexican third eye's never wrong. Am I wrong about _you_?"

"Yes."

(No.)

"Then tell me that the Rachel Berry from a year ago, who agreed to marry Finn Hudson because he sang her a pretty song after he realized he had no dreams of his own, tell me that girl wouldn't have already gone running to him to tell him he may or may not be the father of kid."

She _knows._ She's painfully aware of all of that. Four completely different people sharing a loft, three sets of parents involved in trying to keep them afloat because they want them to focus on their education, one without a raison d'etre but meddled in everyone else's business and one they can't quite figure out.

She can't figure him out. There is nobody on her side. Something breaks in her chest.

"Fine, I—can't... I can't bring a child into this mess."

"But—what do you mean by that?" There's something less menacing about Santana's tone, she wouldn't know from her face—her eyes are fixed on the couch cushion, her finger tightly locked around the strap of her bag.

"There's something Brody's not telling me. Something—" she gulps, not quite sure where she's going. "And I—I don't want to start this drama with Finn again, the wedding was enough and I heard he's doing great things back home, he's found something that—he's found something better than being my cheerleader and I'm happy for him. But I can't tell him right now. Or Brody, at all."

Santana keep softening her demeanor as Rachel speaks, and she takes a step forward, taking a seat on the couch and gently pulling Rachel by the elbow to join her. "You don't trust this guy, I completely understand. But... you know how it's gonna go if you tell Finn, right?"

She tries to nod, but her head barely moves. It's taking everything in her not to cry in front of Santana again.

"Let me tell you how the story will play out. You _know_ he would leave McKinley, and even though he let that girl fucking _face-plant_ on stage under his watch, whatever, I think he was doing something nice for glee club. He _could_ eventually be a good teacher at that school, hell, _Mr. Schue_ is, why couldn't Hudson be?"

(That's reason number one.)

"If the guy's 'dream' finally fucking stabilized at being a teacher for five minutes, then it might as well be his calling, who knows."

(Reason number two.)

"And I also know _you_. You would never let him abandon that, so you'd be willing to move back to Lima at the expense of your own dream and your wretched excuse for a relationship with Ken doll, who you don't really love anyway, just because he would ask you to. He would even raise the baby if it wasn't his."

(Reasons three and four. She's actually digging each finger a little harder onto her palm as if to keep a mental checklist of this whole scenario—it's not like she hasn't given this extensive thought already.)

"You and Finn and New York?" Santana waves a hand dismissively. "Never gonna happen."

It's not in her plans to go back and it's most certainly not in his to come and stay. Nobody wins, not even the baby. With Santana's words, her understanding silence, and Brody's music in the dripping water, she reaches the point where she can see the framework of The Dream (that family with her high school sweetheart and a baby, cheering her on in her Broadway path) being the worst possible outcome, then... that's a stepping stone to thinking about what exactly she's clinging to with the idea of her and Finn.

This is _never_ going to happen, and it's Santana's voice echoing in her head.

If her and Finn and a baby in Ohio are the only way she gets Finn at all now... she suddenly feels knocked out of breath.

She scrambles for her bag and heads out saying Santana's right, but not about which part.

(All of them. _Every single one_.)

..

Rachel rushes down the concrete steps of NYADA out into the street, focusing on strapping her black overcoat a little tighter around her stomach. She gets a little startled when Kurt catches up with her and drops the straps as if they're on fire.

_He doesn't know_, she has to remind herself.

"You will _never_ believe what just happened," he says curtly, taking a sip of his coffee and looking sharply to the other side as he loops his arm with hers—a clear sign that he's mad about something that's, for once, _not_ her.

"What?"

"Santana."

Her stomach drops a little bit. "What did she do?" She can think of a million things, one in particular at the top of the list in bold letters.

"She broke into the school and threatened Brody mid-class!"

"She—" _What?_

"She sought out Ms. July's classroom, they exchanged..._words_ in front of our classmates and she proceeded to perform a Paula Abdul song. Then she asked him to move out by tonight."

It's—she's still trying to piece this scenario together when he goes on, walking faster and she tries to keep up with him with a few skips in her step (when he gets upset, the fact that she's shorter than him easily slips his mind). "I mean, I'm as protective of Brody's feelings as the next hole in the wall, but she barged into our turf without so much as going through your former sycophants, let alone security and it took me a week and a half to get my school ID."

Rachel can see that he's fuming, so it's sisterly support now, understand _what on earth went down_ later. "I can see how that would bother you, Kurt. I went through the same thing, I even had Dad reluctantly make a few calls to figure out if I was indeed enrolled, but this is Santana. I can imagine four years under Coach Sylvester's thumb would—"

"I want her out."

She stops so abruptly, the yank on his arm makes the coffee spill a little from the small hole in the cup. He looks down, then at her and walks back so they stand face to face. "She doesn't pay rent, she doesn't respect our privacy, we're short a common area because she refuses to unload her boxes and build her room, and now she makes us look bad in front of our peers."

"I'm sure her performance was stellar," comes out of her mouth automatically. She clamps her lips when Kurt squints his eyes in indignant confusion. (If the roles were reversed, she'd do the same, but—)

"It doesn't _matter_, Rachel. My personal opinion of Brody aside, he's still a TA, this could reflect badly on us, I'm talking about our status as NYADA students here. She needs to _go_!"

"But—no," she says, her voice just above a rasp.

"Rachel!"

It suddenly hits her. Nobody else knows, nobody else cared enough to find out. Santana did. Santana broke into the school and did something completely wrong and ill-advised in her name. Rachel was not alone at the clinic. There was nobody else under the afghan on the couch hugging her after she basically cried herself to sleep, no one but Santana.

There is no one else in her corner. Not even _Rachel_ feels like standing in her own corner these days. Only that brash, disrespectful, persistent and fiercely loyal person who now Kurt wants out of the apartment.

(If she's being fair, before she had any further knowledge about her situation, she would be right there with Kurt.

However, she knows better.)

"Sweetie, she's freeloading and it doesn't seem like it's gonna change. At least Brody has a job that pays in cash," he says, his tone almost soothing. The thing about the jabs her roommates take at Brody is that she can handle them coming from Kurt. When _Santana_ decides it's her turn, it twists the knife because she knows more than Kurt does—and she's letting Rachel in on it little by little.

"She needs to go before she drives us insane," he finishes, gently rubbing her arm

There's nothing she can say, no argument that won't completely expose her.

When he loops their arms together again, they remain quiet the entire way home.

..

They sit silently, side by side, waiting for Santana to walk in, just _waiting_ for the moment the door slides open, it's—it's like something out of a movie.

And it doesn't help that she's facing the kitchen and the smell of the chicken vinaigrette Kurt had for dinner is all over the apartment. If she closes her eyes, rests her elbows on the arms of the chair and holds her forehead just so, it helps a bit; she doesn't know what it is about _seeing_ it that makes it so nauseating. Shouldn't the smell be worse, actually?

It's easier to focus on these details, even if to her own detriment, than on what's about to take place.

How can she even entertain the thought of backing Kurt up after all Santana has said and done for her?

(The NYADA break-in is still inexcusable—although, from her Facebook feed and the videos she saw, she can't deny its improvised artistic value.

It's all in the small things. This can't be happening.)

There it is. The sound of the door. She keeps her position, still not opening her eyes, palm still holding her forehead. Santana comes in and giddily says, "Guess who just got a job tending bar at the Coyote Ugly Saloon down on 1st?" She makes this rare squeaky noise and Rachel's stomach constricts and loops and this time, at least, she knows it's emotional. Santana got a job. They talked about how it made her and Kurt (and Brody) uncomfortable how she was simply leeching out their resources and _she got a job_.

She takes a deep breath as Santana continues, "Hopefully it bodes better for me than any of the has-beens that starred in that movie."

She's _happy_.

"Santana, please take a seat," Kurt says, and proceeds to tell her what he has been meaning to all day (as far as he knows, with Rachel's support). There's nothing she can add. All she does it silently move her hands to her lap and join them, not daring to look up. She can feel the eyes on her, the expectation that, at some point, she'll intervene in Santana's favor and object to Kurt's wish.

She can't. She feels powerless. Kurt has valid points (NYADA could suspend them for threats against the faculty and unauthorized use of school resources—it's on _them_, because they can't do anything to Santana; the claims were made explicitly in their name) and she can't, in her right mind, dispute them.

Of course Santana being Santana, tells them exactly what she thinks of them (she's never pulled punches before), Rachel even thinks she heard her refer to them as "Olsen twins". But then her tone drops a little, it's less defensive and lower.

It's the way she heard her speak this morning.

"I have love for you, you're my family. I—"

It's the first knife in the gut.

"I haven't lied to you in months! I'm smarter about other people than both of you, you _have_ to trust me," she pleads. It feels directed at her. After all, she had Kurt on her side against Brody all along, didn't she? "Rachel?"

She clears her throat of the frogs that she's had lodged in there all this time. She has to say _something_, even if she doesn't mean it. It's barely a whisper and the sound of her own voice feels foreign to her (as does the sentiment), "Santana, you're making Brody feel uncomfortable. He—" she clears her throat again, a little more wetly this time, "he was here first, so you either lay off of it or you move out."

Looking up feels like a death sentence. She just hears the hoarse "Fine" and suddenly there's a shadow and she knows Santana's standing right in front of her. "Look at me, Berry." Santana has to repeat the command a little more firmly before she complies and sees the betrayal all over Santana's face, clear as day. (She's past the point in their relationship where she flinches thinking she's going to get hit.) "I want you to think about what you're doing, think _very_ carefully."

"Santana—" Kurt tries to interrupt, but is met with the raise of a hand, a silent request for him to stay out of this. Rachel can feel her eyes water again and, just like before, she refuses to let the tears fall.

"Take a good look around you and see who has your back, _truly_ has it. Through the bad and the ugly," and there's a catch in Santana's throat as well. "You may find someone, but what you never cared to find out? I don't walk out on people." There's a pause when Santana glances quickly at Rachel's midriff. "Especially now."

Rachel's breathing is labored while Santana and Kurt focus on each other and leave her to dry the stubborn tears in silence. All she hears is the bickering.

"Nice job, Lady, you _packed _for me too?"

"Your clothes were everywhere, it was the least I could do."

"Yeah, I fucking have _boxes_ here, bet you didn't think about those."

"Which are _still_ boxes, if you haven't noticed—bitch, are you taking my pillow?!'"

When the verbal sparring is taken to the hallway, there's the very noticeable void in the couch of the comforter Santana never failed to steal.

..

Rachel can't sleep for a few hours.

Everything in this bed makes her feel a little alienated. It's cold and large and physically uncomfortable. And she has yet to break in this new emergency blanket she got at Target. (Her intention was to go to Macy's, but there was a direct bus line to other stores and she was freezing and upset. The sooner she got this over with, the better.)

It's scratchy and it smells like plastic. Dear God, _the smells_, all of them. Each one more overpowering than the other.

(Maybe that's why she hasn't been intimate with Brody in the past few weeks. His cologne is just—_so_—)

When she can hear Brody finish his moisturizing ritual (which at first was something amusing and endearing that they shared, but since the storm she can't help but find it grating) and walk across the loft, she quickly closes her eyes and keeps perfectly still.

What she feels around her is kind of the same process she went through earlier tonight, this odd sensation that something's wrong and trying to adapt to it, whatever it is; at first, the surface of the blanket feels cold and starchy, then you try to move around to create some friction. And, when you share a bed with someone, you can also seek them out for warmth. Which he does.

It's not his cologne at all, it's something else and it comes from him. In her effort to keep down the one banana she ate before bed, she falls asleep.

..

Oh, there's Alice, she's been sitting here on the grass waiting for her.

Alice is not wearing a light blue dress and a frilly white apron like Rachel expected. She also has dark hair, very blue eyes and olive skin. She's absolutely gorgeous.

"Time is running out, you know," Alice says, picking at a blade of grass. Rachel frowns.

"What do you mean?"

"You can't have fruit any time you want. You can't make a fruit salad." Alice comes closer and whispers, as if she's telling Rachel a big secret. "It's a very tight schedule, but you can only choose one fruit."

"But fruit is so versatile."

"You never know. You choose one, and once you choose it, that's it. It's chosen. You can't choose another."

"Is this a metaphor," Rachel asks, smiling.

"I'm not talking about about choosing my father. It's about choosing _me_. Do you choose me?"

Rachel feels her smile evaporate, just like everything else. There's no time to run to the bathroom, she lands on her knees, next to a potted plant and can't hold it in any longer. When she feels there's nothing left and she's just heaving at this point, she mentally curses the lack of walls in this place. It's a long time before she gets up from the cold hardwood floor and drags her feet to the bathroom to wash her mouth.

She can't take this constant sickness anymore. (One would call it morning sickness, but it's two in the morning and, until the sun is up in the sky, she refuses to call it 'morning'. Even though it's in the name.) She lives by a code of conduct where she will not google anything that might help. She's paranoid by nature, and one of those searches might land her on websites looking up symptoms for things she most likely doesn't suffer from.

The only person she can think of to call might be asleep (or, if Rachel's lucky, cramming for an exam or drunk with girlfriends—Rachel thinks of a fourth option, but it's hard to associate Quinn with _that_), but she's desperate and will do it anyway.

Quinn picks up on the eighth ring. "'Lo," she clears her throat, but still sounds raspy and deep. "Hel—Rachel, hi." She knows Quinn must have taken a look at the ID and is polite enough to address her.

Rachel closes the bathroom door silently and pulls her knees up to her chest. "Hi, Quinn. I'm sorry to be calling at this time of night."

"It's okay," she says, still raspy, but now also a little bit muffled. She may have laid her head back down on her pillow. "Is everything alright with you?"

It's kind of relieving that Quinn skips the pleasantries and goes straight to the point. "Um. I have a question, actually. How does one relieve morning sickness?"

There's a thump on the other side of the line and a sudden alertness on Quinn's voice. "Rachel, are you pregnant?"

"_No_!" She says that too quickly and, for a moment, she thinks she sold herself out, but there's a clear sigh on Quinn's end. "No, I'm not. It's just that—I have a friend over and she—_she_ is, and it's breaking my heart, you know? Plus, she just threw up in Kurt's ficus and I want to make sure it won't happen again."

Rachel's a terrific actress. She can actually _feel _the relief in Quinn's advice of saltines, water and small portions of fruit. She even tells Rachel what to do about the plant—that part was very valuable, it would devastate Kurt to have his ficus die because of her lack of care for it.

(It also makes her wonder how Quinn would know such things, but then she remembers her upbringing was very different from her own.)

"I hope Andrea's okay," Quinn says. "Give her my best. It's awful to be in this situation at this point in life," her voice lowers. There's a quiet moment, both lost in that statement for their own reasons.

"Thanks, Quinn."

"You should call more."

Rachel smiles. "So should you."

"I do have a couple of other things I wanna see in New York, maybe this time we can leave Santana home and actually enjoy those places?"

The reminder of Santana's absence stings, but she doesn't let it show. "Of course! You can plan it—whenever. We have plenty of time."

She purposefully rushes the goodbyes because she has a few saltines to go cry on.

..

The sun isn't out yet, it's barely five according to her phone when a horrible back pain wakes her up. Rachel doesn't know how he manages, but Brody's already out. She wonders if he barely slept two hours, if that.

She remembers Alice in that strange dream, partly because she needs to focus on other things while she finds a bearable position in bed, partly because it's all she can think about anyway. That little girl's face is so vivid in her mind and her message so blatantly obvious she chokes up once again. She reaches for the phone, finds the number easily and simply types "_come home_".

Rachel doesn't know how Santana manages, but she's there in less than thirty minutes. The back pain has subsided, the sobbing has not. No words are exchanged, only the sound of Santana's soothing mumbling and the gentle fingers in Rachel's hair until they both sleep again.

It's good that Santana didn't forget their comforter.

11


End file.
